Administrative Policies

General

An overpayment of $10 or less will be receipted in as miscellaneous fees.

Personal equipment cannot be plugged into county outlets. Extra cords suddenly appearing can cause a hazard to county staff and the public.

Customers must arrive by 4 p.m. to apply for a marriage license due to the time required in completing the process.

Real Estate

If you have a document number and need a copy mailed, faxed, or emailed, the Clay County Recorder’s Office will be happy to help you when payment is arranged.

Document Retrieval

Statutory deadlines require the recording of real estate documents to be a priority. When you come in person we can demonstrate how to retrieve documents from the public records. Limited document retrieval is done as time permits when a request is made. A request can be mailed, faxed or emailed and requests are processed in the order received. A fee will be charged for copies. If you need document retrieval done within 1-2 weeks, contact an abstractor or researcher. We do not determine ownership or encumbrances.

Document Corrections

If an inconsequential correction is made to a real estate document use XXX or a solid line to show the error and write or type the correction and initial to identify the person making the correction. Do not use white out, as it can easily be scraped off.

Do not use highlighter on a document to be recorded or filed. The highlighter often blacks out the area when reproduced.

Checks

Checks for recording real estate documents are sometimes distributed to different departments. To avoid confusion write all checks to “Clay County.” Checks for State Deed Tax (SDT) and Mortgage Registry Tax (MRT) can be combined in one check. A separate check is needed for delinquent taxes and a separate check for recording fees.

If numerous documents are submitted for recording with 1 check to cover all recording fees and any of the documents are not in recordable form, all documents will be returned without recording. We do not provide refund checks.

General Document Guidelines

Blanket assignments need to include legal descriptions.

When re-recording a document, a statement as to why the document is being re-recorded needs to be on the document with new signatures and acknowledgements of the parties involved. A corrective document would be preferred. A corrective document also needs a statement as to the document number of the document being corrected and what is to be corrected.

Real estate documents are returned to the submitter unless an addressed, stamped envelope is submitted with the documents for the purpose of mailing the documents to a different party or address.

To request a document be tracted against a specific real estate parcel, it must be received at the time of recording. Requests are not accepted to add land at a later date.

Clay County Land Record Policy

“A Transfer On Death Deed can’t be used to split a tax parcel; the tax parcel split must be done before the new legal description can be used on a Transfer On Death Deed.”

Plats

A proposed new plat must be submitted to the Clay County Recorder 10 days prior to recording to allow for a review process by the various land record departments. The mylar should not be made until this review process is complete.

A new plat including a Common Interest Community (CIC) plat must be all abstract land or all Torrens land.

A new plat must include the name of the city in the subtitle of the plat if the platted area is located in an incorporated area.